Medical Researcher. He received recognition after the presentation of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, "for the discovery of insulin." The coveted award was given to Dr. Frederick Banting and John James Rickard MacLeod. MacLeod, who was the associate dean of medicine and director of the physiology laboratory at the University of Toronto. MacLeod gave Banting funding, the use of the laboratory, and an assistant to research insulin and diabetes. The research assistant, by a flip of a coin, was a medical student named Charles Best. Best and Banting eventually isolated insulin in the pancreas, injecting the hormone into a diabetic dog with a high blood glucose, and having the results of a drop in the blood sugar. They published their findings in the "Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine," mentioning a Romanian scientist, Nicolæ Paulescu's research. To Best's surprise, he did not receive one single nomination for the Nobel Prize but Banting received six and MacLeod received two. Best ordered the injection of the first dose of insulin to a fourteen-year-old diabetic patient, who had a reaction to the drug. The insulin had to be refined and stabilized before Eli Lilly and Company massed produced the drug. Banting was upset about Best being overlooked, hence gave him half of the monitory prize and publicly made it be known of his contribution to the research. Macleod in turn gave half of his monetary prize to biochemist Dr. James Collip, who he had brought in to the research in April of 1921 to extract the insulin, later refining the insulin to prevent allergic reactions. Born in Maine to a Canadian physician, he spent his childhood in Maine before going in 1915 to the University of Toronto. His interest in diabetes was led by the death of an aunt, who was diagnosed with the disease. Upon MacLeod's leaving the University of Toronto, Best became a professor in 1929. During World War II, he was influential in starting a program in the use of dried blood serum. With Banting's death in 1941 during World War II, he became the Director of the University of Toronto's Banting-Best Department of Medical Research. He also gained fame for investigating the properties of the anti-coagulant agent heparin. For his research with insulin, he received 18 honorary degrees and was a member of several learned societies. In 1994 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, and in 2004 to the National Inventor Hall of Fame. In 1967 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in recognition for "his contribution to medicine, particularly as co-discoverer of insulin." Some fifty years after the Canadian group announced their discovery of insulin, the Nobel Prize Committee stated Paulescu had actually discovered insulin first, and their earlier award was based on the information given to them in 1923. After reviewing current information, the statement also stated the award should have been given to Banting, Best, and Paulescu.